Grow Your Email List by Offering Incentives

Chris Bolton

When someone signs up to your email list, they do it because they expect something in return. This is important to remember. If you’re having trouble growing your email list (online or off) you need to make sure that you’re providing enough value to properly motivate potential fans to take the leap.

Yes, your newsletter has value, but do your potential subscribers know that? And is your newsletter so valuable that, in-and-of-itself, it will properly motivate someone to sign up?

Sweeten the deal

Offering an incentive to sign up can be just the thing to tip the scale. Maybe you’ll offer a monthly newsletter and an eBook of your tour diary. Maybe you’ll offer your subscribers an instant download of a song as soon as they sign up. You could give away prizes and ticket discounts just for being on your list. You could provide a free eBook, some signed artwork, or a computer desktop background. It doesn’t even have to be a physical or digital gift. You can give away access. Maybe you make yourself easily accessible by email to your subscribers. Maybe you offer access to special videos, lyrics, poems, etc. These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. The goal is to create a value proposition that not only conquers a person’s indifference to signing up to your list, but also overthrows their fears of signing up to an email list that might result in an inbox full of spam.

The value of an email address

It’s important to remember that your fans are giving you something rather valuable: access to their email inbox. Email is still one of the most intimate forms of digital communication besides video chat. When you think of it this way, giving away a free track (or something else of value) isn’t such a bad deal. Heck, a newsletter subscriber could become a loyal fan who buys everything you release for the next 6 years. There’s potential for building some really profitable relationships through your email list. That’s why it’s important to offer some value up front.

Include a call to action

And don’t just add value, make sure your potential subscribers know it’s there. “Join my email list” is boring. “Join my email list and get a free download of my newest single” is much better. You don’t have to limit this technique to your website either. Try passing around a clipboard at an event. Let your audience know that “X” number of people who sign up to your list will get a free a free T-shirt, album, book, or other prize.

What added value do you offer your fans when they sign up to your list? Do you state it clearly on your site? Have you had success offering extras in exchange for an email address? Please share in the comments below.

Note: If you’re a HostBaby client and you want to offer a free download of one of your songs when someone signs up to your email list, see this tutorial.